Scarlet Pimpernel

Amen! Now it's just "accepted" somehow, for better or worse (worse most likely, but oh well!). It is December 29, and there are now 16 (!!!) pages in the January medium range thread already...and probably half of those are whining and complaining that some 200+ hour setup doesn't look HECS-like enough at one cycle when it was perfect 6 hours earlier. I swear, some people think or expect that we get wall-to-wall cold and/or snow for weeks on end (a'la 2013-14 which was quite an exception), when that's not how it works around here. You take the favorable periods that come and go, and hope something good and wintry works out. Just because we may at some point flip back to "meh" and somewhat warm for a time doesn't mean it's going to be a torch with nothing through early March. All cynicism aside, I am optimistic (as much as one can be in these parts) for January. I think we likely score at least one really solid event that will be Folks to Jaws worthy. Not necessarily a HECS (probably not), but a good area-wide high end warning level snow, bigger than we got last year or the previous winter.

"Everything you always wanted in a snowstorm, and LESS!"

Merry Christmas all! May you all have peace and happiness this Holiday season!!

These are obnoxiously ignorant and offensive posts, which show little to no understanding about the workings of NOAA, NWS, numerical models, or even science in general. They're doubly odious after what all Federal employees, including those within NOAA, have had to deal with in this past year. You should be ashamed of yourself, if you are capable of that, for posting this utter drivel, especially at this time of year.

We really need to see the RRFSOPQXYZ ensembles. I hear there are 26 members!!

I don't recall that exactly...but I do remember sometime around then we were "supposed" to get a sleet bomb and it wasn't much of anything. The last legit one I remember actually getting was the Valentine's Day 2007 storm, we just missed out on heavy snow and got like 3" sleet (areas to the east/southeast of DC got serious ice), which froze into a block of ice right afterward.

Uhhh...errrr...given the RR context, that may not have been the best choice of words!!! Or maybe my mind is...oh, nevermind! Now, back to our regularly scheduled sleet and ice bomb!

You still wake up in the dark, don't you, to that awful screaming of the lambs? Try some fava beans with a nice chianti!

I'll double your exactly and agree! This may be a little off-topic, but what you allude to about modes of thinking is the reason I roll my eyes when I hear people say how 2015-16 was totally sucky and a torch except for the one big storm in January. Well...that's a rather large "exception" ("Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?")!! Not to mention, I believe that thinking is skewed by the ridiculous month-long torch in December, which averaged +8 to +10 for the month across the area. But take a look at January and February, at just DCA for example. We were 2-3 degrees colder than normal in January and about normal (very slightly below) in February. Yeah, the last week or so of that February got warm, but let's not pretend that the big January blizzard was the only chance we had and everything else was wall-to-wall torch. We did get a rather interesting event around Presidents' Day, ice/snow, that seems to slip under the radar in recalling that season. Did we have other chances in the 6 week period from early January to mid-late February? Maybe, I don't exactly recall...but I bet if we got just one more moderate advisory or warning-level event people wouldn't be saying it was a failure "except for one event". Heck, I still like the winter of 2006-07...after a warm December and first part of January, things flipped and we had an extremely cold February. Yeah, we missed out on big snow for that Valentine's Day (but 3" sleet and ice followed by very cold!), but we did have chances and I still like that season even though it was below normal in terms of actual snow. Or even 2014-15...sucky until Valentine's Day that year, and we had a concentrated 3-4 week period of intense winter! But people don't talk about how that winter was all crap "other than..."

Average that out and we're looking pretty good!! But seriously, yeah, there's a lot going on with how this will all evolve. I mean hell, just look at the mood the past week or so in this place! One day everyone's all high about how we actually have a couple of potential events, joking about "what Christmas torch?", and the next when that's not being modeled anymore everyone is all gloom and doom, saying we're toast until at least mid-January.

I just love the sunset color at this time of year!!

Same here. I don't expect snowy Christmases (or Decembers in general) in the DMV area anyhow. But a nice, chilly day in the 40s or so is fine, and at least not a washout with rain. Or where it feels humid as you say! In 2015 here, we had that ridiculous +8 or so departure for the month (thank God that didn't happen in July!). It was literally uncomfortably warm and humid after some heavy rain late evening on Christmas Eve. Now, growing up in northeast Ohio, different story! Definitely plenty of cold and snowy Decembers and Christmases there which was always great. Actually I recall one of the most striking reversals in terms of Christmas temperatures. In 1982, Cleveland set a record high on Christmas of 66 degrees (that was a crap winter all around). Exactly one year later in 1983, they set a record low of -10, brutal cold and wind all day with some Lake effect snow, temperatures barely got into the single digits for highs.

Meh...72" is like being fringed!

Yeah that was the ultimate true statement...100% chance of weather and all models and every ensemble agrees on that! Don't forget the known knowns and known unknowns too. You've probably figured out that this place can go from one extreme to another in almost no time! I just await some opportunity for @stormtracker with GUYS, FOLKS, JAWS!!

All joking aside (and you know who I was sort of poking fun at), that is a very reasonable estimate.

So, not your first final call, or your final initial estimate to be revised later, but an actual final call??

I like seeing a consistent ~0.3" QPF in the DC area, my expectation in this area is on the order of 2-4" in a fairly short period of time through early morning. Tomorrow promises to be quite wintry...it will be clearing out but it will be cold and getting windy, with snow on the ground!

I say let it happen, and let it crash!!!

Thank you! It was amazing. I looked outside from my apartment and saw the color just in time to rush up to the rooftop deck and grab a few shots before it disappeared. I love the sunset color at this time of year!

You mean like THIS? (Took these not long ago, just in time to capture that amazing sunset...and yeah, I enhanced the color)...

Yeah that's kind of what I was thinking with my comments above about the broad "bowl" type look. I would think that at least keeps a fair bit of cold air on this side of the hemisphere, which keeps a solid amount of cold air ever lurking in Canada. If we don't have some jacked up ridge form that floods all the cold air out, we can perhaps score what you're mentioning...a CAD overrunning event, and even if it flips to rain, there is still cold air nearby that can come right back in behind the system. At least that's the hope!

Paging Beethoven (and @stormtracker, @Maestrobjwa...fellow classical music afficionados!)...

Can you zoom that out to the global scale, please??

Well, I sure hope that's the case. The long post I put above the one with the "Lord, it's a miracle!" gif was just some stuff I observed from cursory looks at the 500-mb flow. I'd much prefer (and assume others as well) a broad bowl than a pumped up ridge that not only would torch us but would blow away cold air in Canada which would take a longer time to regenerate. BTW...you don't care for "Shawshank Redemption" (the gif I put up there), with the weenie tag emoji??